http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.ch/2012/01/censorship.

html

Censorship in China: for Better, or for Worse?

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/2011/01/of-china/

By: Samuel Quinn Zurich International School

Grade 8 English J8 Summit 2012

Censorship is something that some countries with specific government regimes endorse and use to limit the potential for sensitive issues to appear in front of the public eye, but the question is should censorship be endorsed by governments where it may be helpful or should all censorship be disallowed? In China the great firewall was erected, to censor what people put on the internet, the name evolved to describe internet censorship in China, the metaphorical wall blocks sensitive issues from reaching the public eye. The Great Firewall of China is also seen as cultural connection between censorship and the limits it strains on culture. Is The Great Firewall the right decision with over 3.2 million using the web and the possibility for that many opinions on sensitive issues? Censorship is thought to be fallacious, and many governments are taking steps to abolish it and these thoughts about censorship and first steps are the correct adjudications. Censorship in China creates limitations on the possibilities for Chinese citizens. Censorship in China is due to political susceptibility, because the government is not seen to be up to modern standards, but is claimed to be in place because of the difficulty of controlling 1.4 billion people. Things that are often times censored in China are things that relate to Tibetan independence, Taiwan, and democracy in China, these three types of things are censored because the government does not want to stir uprising after an opinion that goes against a decision that the government has made. However with censorship there are serious problems such as the severe limits on creativity, the violence used to invoke fear and self censorship, and the limited free flow of knowledge. Excessive censorship limits creativity, the censorship often times disallows certain art pieces, videos, or photography from reaching the limelight. Censorship can limit creativity because it puts restrictions on what people are allowed to think about, and then transfer into art forms. To begin with, often times art that is censored is art that is showing opinions about the government, or certain views on how the government works; people who have bad opinions of the government often format their opinions using political humour, this political humour is what the Chinese government often censor because, the art that is created based on politics causes people to laugh and this is viewed by the Chinese government as mockery of the government. A former journalist from the Chinese Digital times rewrote the lyrics to a famous Chinese rock classic after two high speed trains collided in China, poking fun at the Chinese high speed train project in a satirical and creative way, this is the reason this journalist is a former journalist, it was quickly censored and the man lost his job for being creative [Beach, Sophie]. Secondly, many famous artist choose to self censor their work in

order avoid government prosecution, or self censor simply out of fear of the government, because of the violence the Chinese government often uses to censor. Ai Wei Wei a famous Chinese dissident does not fear the government at all, and many of his works have been taken out of public view; the middle finger has been known as Ai Wei Weis calling card, because it is featured in many of his artworks, aimed towards the government or specific government buildings. Ai Wei Wei was put in jail for art that poked at the Chinese government with the middle finger. He has over 138,522 supporters and expresses an opinion that many Chinese citizens share about the government, and the government removed his right to freedom of speech, by censoring his art [In China, is censorship the mother of creativity?]. Violence that the Chinese government uses to censor peoples opinions that are shown in artistic ways is another disgusting side to Chinese censorship. The Chinese government has often used violence in order to censor freedom of thought, the violence has shocked the international community and is believed to be used to invoke fear in the Chinese citizens, so that they withhold their opinions in the future, they essentially use violence to teach Chinese activists a lesson in a horrific way. This violent censorship restates the fact that censorship is wrong. Firstly, the situation in which violence is used by the government is at public protests, the police in China have recurrently shot at protestors in the street or in the squares, the military has occasionally been deployed to remove the protestors from the streets by either killing them or detaining them. For instance, the massacre at Tiananmen square is big example of the government using violence, the military was sent out to massacre the students demonstrating in the square peacefully. The U.S. president George Bush said he deeply deplored the use of violence and the U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said she was appalled by the shootings [Adie, Katie]. These violent acts in Beijing brought world condemnation. It is reported that over 2600 people were killed at the Tiananmen square massacre in 1989 this a horrifically high amount of dead and the government even undercounted this number to 241 dead, in fear of their own actions [Szczepanski,, Kallie]. Secondly, the violence that is implored by the Chinese government to censor, breaks many human rights: the government detain people without or due process or a made up conviction, the government also secretly kidnaps people to be never be seen again because they have received the death penalty for speaking against the government. To illustrate, Ai Wei Wei, a famous Chinese dissident and artist, was detained for the made up crime of tax evasion, when what the Chinese government were really detaining him for was his speaking out against the government, a crime that is not really a

crime [In China, is censorship the mother of creativity?]. Human Rights Watch talks about another man: Chen Guang cheng, a human rights activist that was assaulted by men supposedly from
the government, who then detained him in his own home for a year, from 2010 to 2011 when he managed to escape. These two men had their freedom of speech taken away, their opinions were censored. A side effect of violent censorship from the Chinese government is limited free flow of knowledge creating the impossibility for those within China to reform, when no other system of government is apparent to them. The free flow of knowledge is something that has been affected by Chinese censorship, it is something that has been reduced because of the lack of information on certain sensitive topics and the disallowing by the government of some information to get to the public eye; even information that generally flows through societies is limited because of the censorship powers the government have. First of all, the importance of free flowing knowledge is paramount, because not every person can know every single thing; individual people who think of things or innovate are thinking as an individual mind, whereas a collection of knowledge creates a massive mind and more potential for innovation, creation. Pertti Saariluoma from the University of Jyvaeskylae, illustrates that the free flow of knowledge is important to human development, he says a scientist maybe thinking of trying to innovate something but the math involved in the process is not apparent to the scientist, so the creation could not be made. In the case of China, censorship is cutting off the free flow of knowledge and stunting the development of certain things related to sensitive topics such as: Tibetan independence, Taiwan, democracy, and others. Secondly, knowledge on certain topics such as Tibet, or democracy are limited, because of political sensitivity and the want by the government to reduce stirring among the public about their own government or the stirring of ideas of reform [Sainsbury, Peter]. The amount of websites blocked by China in 2010 was 1.3 million, as recorded by the BBC, this amount of websites that were blocked limit the knowledge that internet users have the potential to have. In conclusion, free knowledge is vital to human development and the government has limited the capacity of free knowledge in China and instead being a collaborative mind, is a collection of individual minds that are blocked from communicating information to other people that may have a beneficial use for the information. In essence, censorship in China is something that should be abolished entirely because of the limitations it strains on creativity, the violence that the government pursues to ensure censorship of sensitive items, and the limited free flow of knowledge, that may create an ignorant nation. It is clear from these elements of Chinese censorship that censorship in China creates a glass ceiling over citizens of the country, they are blocked from going into the sensitive issues area, and are restricted in everything they do. It is time for the international community to act and remove censorship from Chinese culture, or replace the system with a scheme that censors peoples lives for the better instead

of limiting them; will the future of censorship hold different forms of censorship or the complete abolishment of it entirely?

Works Cited
Adie, Katie. "1989: Massacre in Tiananmen Square." BBC BBC. 4/6/12 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/4/newsid_ 2496000/2496277.stm>.

Beach, Sophie. "Why Chinese Political Humor is Spreading Online." China Digital Times China Digital Times. 10 1 2012. 4/6/12 <http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/01/chuanzibecoming-what-you-criticize/>.

China: EU Rights Talks Sliding Toward Irrelevance. 25/5/2012 Human Rights Watch. 4/6/12 <http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/25/china-eu-rights-talks-sliding-towardirrelevance>.

In China, is censorship the mother of creativity?. 10/4/12 Aljazeera. 4/6/12 <http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/china-censorshipmother-creativity-0022167>.

Sainsbury, Peter. Heavy Censorship By Chinese Authorities As Sichuan Violence Continues. 7/2/12 RFA Unplugged. 4/6/12 <http://www.rfaunplugged.org/2012/02/07/heavycensorship-by-chinese-authorities-as-sichuan-violence-continues/>.

Szczepanski,, Kallie . The Tiananmen Square Massacre, 1989. About. 4/6/12 <http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/a/TiananmenSquare_3.htm>.

Bibliography
Bennett, Isabella. Media Censorship in China. March 7, 2011 Council on Foreign Relations. May 22, 2012 <http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515>.

Censorship. Greenhaven Press, 2010.

Haney, Clare., Guth, Rob., Uimonen, Terho., Legard, David.. "Censorship on the 'Net: The view from overseas." Network World. 27 Oct. 1997: 51. eLibrary. Web. 03 May. 2012.b

Massacre in Tiananmen Square. 2005 BBC. May 25, 2012 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/4/newsid_2496000/2496277. stm>

Schiller, Kurt. "Google Takes a Stand in China." Information Today. 01 Sep. 2010: 56. eLibrary. Web. 03 May. 2012.